#but I would never judge you for being wrong

[aquamarinemarie]

Second Love

There is nothing wrong with being a man’s second love. Or a woman’s for that matter.

I’ve heard it being said, whether by gleeful solavellan critics or by angry, disappointed solavellan’s themselves, that the love Solas and Lavellan share is now diminished or tainted by Solas’ love for Mythal.

I could not disagree more.

In fact, I believe Solas’ love for Lavellan is made all the stronger by him having experienced (and lost) love in the past.

No one ever forgets their first love, this is true. First love is special.

But first love rarely lasts. For most people their first true love is the love that will inevitably lead to their first heartbreak.

Solas’ first love betrayed him – so much so that he had to burn her off his face. She lied to him, she used him, and yet he still held out hope that she would come back to him. He fell in love with an unobtainable, married woman, who thought she could control him.

“But you were always stubborn, Fen'Harel. Insubordinate. Unmanageable, even by Mythal’s reckoning.” – Elgar’nan

A woman who wanted to be a queen. To be a god to her people. She was not the woman he thought her to be, and so, their relationship had fallen apart.

And then Mythal was murdered. Solas blamed himself and grieved his first love alone.

In Inquisition Solas never anticipated that he could fall in love, not for a second time. But within a year’s time Lavellan had somehow wormed her way into becoming someone so special, so dear to him, that he was tempted to throw everything away just to be with her.

Second love could not be denied, no matter how hard Solas attempted to resist. No matter how many times he tried to turn away.

Love kept calling him back, and love kept calling him forward.

Second love is less naïve than the first and has learned from past mistakes. Second love is all the more hopeful and knows the pain of love lost. Second love knows the value of their shared bond and can show you what real love is supposed to be.

Solas and Lavellan’s love is an enduring, mature love. It endures separation, persists through doubt, is sacrificial, is understanding, is compassionate, and is forgiving.

When Solas says that he will tear down the veil to create the world Mythal wanted, please know that this is a lie. Solas is ultimately tearing down the veil for himself. To rectify one of his greatest mistakes. To salve his conscience.

Solas knows he’s in the wrong here, and that is why he cowers when Mythal appears before him. Remember who Mythal was when she was alive.

She was his queen. Judge, jury, and executioner of the elven people.

Solas truly believes he deserves to be executed – that is why he halfway offers the dagger to her. But what he doesn’t, nay, couldn’t anticipate is for Mythal to own up to her part in their wrongdoings and to admit that she broke him.

She then finally releases him.

Old friends and former lovers. Solas will always love Mythal, but he is no longer in love with her. His heart belongs to Lavellan now, to his future.

[minswriting]

DIE WITH A SMILE - SPENCER REID X READER

About: You and Spencer are dancing in his living room and you think about the way you fell for him.

Warnings: fluff!! mentions of spencer’s addiction, getting shot, migraines, etc. takes place in season 7 heehee. not proof read yet again because once i finish writing, im DONE lol

Word Count: 1.5k

A/N: Based off of Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. Border made by @esote-rika !! Please comment and reblog with your thoughts!

Ooh

I, I just woke up from a dream

Where you and I had to say goodbye

And I don't know what it all means

But since I survived, I realized

The soft tune of a song filled the apartment with a soothing hum. You were standing in the middle of Spencer’s living room, swaying as Spencer held you close to him. One hand in yours, the other wrapped around your waist while your other hand rested on Spencer’s shoulder. It was romantic, to say the least. The dim lighting of the lamp standing in the corner created the perfect atmosphere.

Nothing was spoken between either of you as you looked at one another. Nothing had to be spoken. Words were meaningless when it came to the emotions you felt for each other. Years of friendship, years of companionship, years of pining for the other until one day, it all came to fruition.

You joined the BAU a year after Spencer. Being the same age and of similar intellect, it was easy to form a friendship. You never judged him for his incessant rambling, always smiling and listening to him with your full attention. Just as he never judged you when you went on about the latest gossip in pop culture. And when you were both paired up on cases? Well, you were a duo that couldn’t be outmatched.

It was inevitable that you ended up falling for the genius doctor. With his fun little quirks, the way he got so excited over random topics, how he was so passionate about his work. But what had really sealed the deal for you was his loyalty and commitment to the team.

There were countless nights when you’d show up to his apartment after a really hard case, crying because of anxiety. And Spencer would take you in with open arms, consoling you until you’ve cried it out. He always ordered your favorite take out afterwards and you’d eat ice cream together.

Wherever you go, that’s where I’ll follow

Nobody’s promised tomorrow

So I’ma love you every night like it’s the last night

Like it’s the last night

Spencer smiled at you, his beautiful amazing smile that never failed to put butterflies in your stomach. And you, of course, smiled back. He spun you around, causing you to laugh as you both continued swaying. “You have the prettiest laugh,” Spencer murmured, still grinning as he held you again.

“And you have the prettiest smile,” You replied, tilting your head with a loving gaze in your eyes.

Spencer couldn’t help the small laugh that left his lips as his cheeks reddened from your words. The two of you have been dating for a year now and yet, you still make that man blush.

As you danced together, you thought about the two of you over the years. You realized you liked Spencer early on. Perhaps you fell first, you didn’t really know.

After the whole fiasco with Tobias Hankle, you knew something was wrong with Spencer. At first you had assumed it was simply trauma, needing to work through the fact that he had been kidnapped. However, the irritability, the shakiness, the unkempt look of his appearance mixed with the fact that you noticed he hadn’t been eating. That’s how you knew that Spencer was suffering from more than just trauma. And when you walked in on him in the bathroom one day, shooting a needle into his arm, it was safe to say your assumption was right.

That day you got him the help he needed without the Bureau knowing that it was happening. You didn’t want to risk Spencer’s position but you also knew he couldn’t keep ruining his body. You had cried to Spencer, telling him that you couldn’t fathom a world without him if things were to go incredibly wrong, as addictions usually do. So you guys did things privately to ensure he was okay. That was the day you realized just how much you cared for Spencer, even if you didn’t know it was love quite yet.

If the world was ending, I’d wanna be next to you

If the party was over and our time on Earth was through

I’d wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile

If the world was ending, I’d wanna be next to you

Ooh

The second time you realized how much you cared for Spencer was when he got shot in the leg. You knew it wasn’t fatal as it was just his knee. But you were still worried, nonetheless. You were the first one to visit Spencer in the hospital. Everyone else had immediately gone to Hotch after finding out that he had been stabbed by Foyet. Maybe you should’ve been a bit more worried about your boss, maybe you should’ve seen him first. And yet, all you cared about was the fact that Spencer had been shot.

That was the first time you allowed yourself to admit you were in love with Spencer even if you didn’t tell him.

The way you guys got together was a bit unconventional. Spencer had been having a prolonged period of migraines, strengthened by the stress of a schizophrenic break, well, it wasn’t a happy period to say the least. He hadn’t admitted to anyone that he was having migraines, wanting to keep it to himself. But you, being the beautiful and amazing best friend that you were, knew he was suffering from a headache of sorts with his sensitivity to light and loud noises.

And so, after a particularly easy case, you had gone to Spencer’s with two different bags in your hand. One was just takeout from this Indian food place that you knew Spencer adored. And the other was a bag from the pharmacy which included pain killers, a cold pack, vitamin c, and other things you knew that helped with migraines.

Spencer had answered the door wearing TARDIS pajama pants and a black t-shirt, wearing fuzzy slippers on his feet, and his hair was all over the place. His eyes were sunken in with even darker circles around them, eyebrows furrowed from the light. He had clearly just woken up from a nap.

“What are you-“ Spencer began to ask, his voice hoarse from sleep.

You interrupted him, keeping your tone soft so as to not cause any more pain for him. “I brought you some food,” You said, giving Spencer a small smile. “And I’ve noticed you’ve been having pain so I brought you some stuff that could help.”

Who was Spencer to say no?

The night had been spent in mostly silence, eating on Spencer’s couch with little conversation. And eventually, it ended with Spencer’s head in your lap, a cold pack on his eyes, while your fingers moved through his messy hair, massaging his scalp. It was a peacefulness that you only ever got with Spencer. You were taking care of him and the quiet didn’t feel awkward whatsoever.

Eventually, Spencer broke the silence with a sentence that changed the dynamic between the two of you forever. “I love you,” he whispered, scared to use his voice. He had been so quiet. Had it not already been so silent, you could’ve missed it. But you didn’t.

Those three words caused you to stop your movements in his hair as you looked down at Spencer. He removed the cold pack from his eyes, looking up at you. “What?” You asked, furrowing your eyebrows, as though you had mistaken what Spencer had said.

This time, he didn’t hesitate. “I love you,” Spencer said, his voice more clear this time.

“I-I love you too,” You had responded, heart fluttering in your chest from Spencer’s simple confession. It didn’t need to be this big, emotional ordeal.

That night, you guys found a new way to alleviate migraines.

Oh, lost, lost in the words that we scream

I don't even wanna do this anymore

'Cause you already know what you mean to me

And our love's the only war worth fighting for

Wherever you go, that's where I'll follow

Nobody's promised tomorrow

So I'ma love you every night like it's the last night

Like it's the last night

And now, here you were, laughing and smiling as you moved in sync with Spencer in his living room. In a silly moment, you moved your arm so you could spin Spencer around, causing him to laugh and do so. Nothing else mattered between the two of you. Your love for each other went above anything. You will always protect him just as he’d always protect you.

If today was your last day on Earth, you’d die the happiest woman alive because you’d die knowing you got to be in love with the world’s most amazing and intelligent man.

[inwumaki]

inumaki x cat girl reader? do u fw that?

fluffy ofc!!

Well I'm not exactly sure how well I'll manage it but will be trying my best! :> (I'm guessing the user has cat like traits and personality? I'm sorry if I got it wrong)

Inumaki with a black cat girlfriend? (Headcanons!)

Anime: Jujutsu kaisen/jjk

Character: Inumaki Toge

Synopsis: Inumaki is dating you who has a...perhaps a very cat like personality (Golden retriever x black cat :])

Toge was rather confused when first talked to you, well because when he first saw you he would have easily assumed you as perhaps stoic. He definitely found you well...intimidating but his perspective went three sixty degrees when you both were paired up for a mission. He learnt from then to never judge someone based off of...delusions?

Toge has a really bad habit of calling you kitten through texts, like your name is litterally saved on hlis phone as that.

Doesn't matter who initiates it but whenever you two kiss the big flush on your cheeks is always worth being seen. Toge would do everything to see you boldness falter and watch you be shy.

Toge knows no matter how much you deny it he knows you loveeeeee cuddles. Like you cuddle you 24/7. No cap. You like it or not he's always there. Always.

One thing about you and Toge is that you both are always touching. Always. Hugs, kisses, holding hands. Big on pda.

Toge thought himself to be bold enough in a relationship till he was in one with you. First kiss you initiated, first hug? You initiated it. First anything? You.

Toge whenever you were in a grumpy mood would do anything and everything to cheer you up. Perhaps something like patting your head like he would of a cat's ignoring your protests of not being a cat (he believes you were his pet kitten in your past lives).

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

Bojack Lays It Down Flat On Stolas

I think a lot of people have made comparisons between Stolas and Bojack for good reasons because both are assholes who keep using their tragic backstories to absolve themselves of their actions and keep repeating the same mistake that makes people alienate themselves from them. The difference is the narrative knows Bojack is wrong and makes him pay for his mistakes, while Stolas is constantly babied and treated as tragic going through everything. I can imagine if Stolas befriended Bojack he would at first side with him and let him crash at whatever new place he managed to get but soon realizes what an ungrateful, whiny privileged asshole he is.

This would be post series Bojack where he's lost his reputation and had many friends distance him and just had Mr. Peanutbutter backing him. However, I could see him after a season worth of dealing with him telling him the ugly truth about what type of person he is and wouldn't sugarcoat it. It would also come out because Bojack realizes he's not so different from Stolas and hates it. He really doesn't want the bird in his life, especially if he can't admit he's a pos.

______________________________________________________________

Bojack: You know when I first let you crash here I thought it was because life treated you like crap and you needed someone to help you, but now I realize that it's only because your actions led you to this.

Stolas: What are you saying? You can go blaming what that harpy of an ex-wife and her brother did to me on myself.

Bojack: I can say you allowed yourself to be stripped of your powers because you valued dying for your boy toy rather than living for your kid.

Stolas: But I had no choice he would have died if I hadn't of done anything.

Bojack: You still broke your promise to never leave her and caused her stay in your ex's and brother in law's clutches. And this all started because you had to get your dick wet instead of actually being man enough to divorce. Dude, if you really cared about your daughter you would have long left your wife instead of staying together so you can stroke your martyr complex.

Stolas: Don't judge me I tried the best I could for that girl all these years.

Bojack: If that's what you called trying I hate to see what you do when you don't give a damn.

Stolas: Shut up and give me more absinthe.

Bojack: Also dude get a job and buy your own groceries. I am tired of cooking and getting booze for a pompous brat like you. In fact, I just want you to get the fuck out of here and you can wallow in your own issues because it's not my responsibility to give a hoot about you.

[ceramicbeetle]

actually it's kind of funny how people will say Alex's fatal flaw is that he 'doesn't ask for help' and that it's his determination to handle things on his own that leads to his deterioration and eventual death when his whole introduction to the present-day timeline was a very literal cry for help that simply went ignored

[8km-2]

was the church always in charge of yharnam or was there like a mayor and then laurence came along and did something...?

[mangled-by-disuse]

so one of the things that annoys me endlessly is this phenomenon where, when I say I like something, people assume that means I want more of it, a different version of it, add-ons and bells and whistles, and i'm just like

no.

no, when I say I like tea, I mean I like tea. Not herbal tisanes, not "tea with--", no milk, no sugar, no fruit, no frills, just good-quality tea in a range of fermentations and colours.

when I say I like a hot bath, I mean the bath. Not bubble-bath, not bath oils and foams and salves and unguents, not candlelight and music and a zen space to sensually relax with a book and a glass of wine, just a hot bath in a normally-lit bathroom where I can unwind and get clean.

when I say I like beer, I mean I like beer. Not fruit-flavoured, not with a special something-something added, for the love of GOD not sweetie-flavoured, just a well-brewed ale or stout in a simple pint glass, in good company.

and that isn't because there's anything WRONG with the add-ons! these are not bad things! I know that for some people, a tea advent calendar with different herbal blends, or a luxurious foamy scented bath with candles and music, is what they mean by "I like tea" and "I like baths". but it would just be nice if when I asked for a green tea, people didn't assume I mean "with..."

anyway this post is about lord of the rings: war of the rohirrim

[kodokugumon]

the fact that so many child abuse laws are like "its not child abuse unless it leaves a lasting mark" is so fucking crazy to me. You can hit a kid as long as your fists weren't closed and you hit them light enough

[ebitenpura]

still thinking about how Eight doesn't want to run into other Echani in the wild because he's afraid they'll see right through him and know the kind of man he is at first glance (an honorless killer) and the knowledge that he no longer fits even in his own culture's society would be too harsh a blow to bear, but unbeknownst to him it'd probably just make him more attractive in their eyes lolol

[gibbearish]

love how literally every other r/offmychest post is someone going "my partner just asked about opening up the relationship, what do i do?" and the comments are "the relationship is dead, this is a horrible betrayal of your trust, break up with them you don't deserve this abuse"

[thespoonisvictory]

I need to stop being a hater on everyone’s wbn suvi and ame opinions but my god

[broke-on-books]

Was gonna post this on the ig spam I never use but decided that joke was too bad for ppl irl so uh. Here you go.

[wheatlev]

this post abt like. disliking accents is bad because they are probably a minority/rural/poor/etc really only applies to english speakers i think

there is a certain part of the country here that has like. THE Worst Heavy Accent ever and a lot of people don't even speak the common version of the language so you are sitting here like. what are u talking abt

and these people are NOT a racial minority by any means, nor are they exclusively rural, or colonized. what they are however is weirdly entitled

[cursingtoji]

the cardio machine i want is on the cardio machine

cw: gym rat toji x loser!gf - size kink, sweat kink (?), toji is a big old meanie. loser!gf series: geto gojo nanami.

loser!reader who, like a million other sedentary people on new year’s eve, said “new year new me” and proceeded to enroll at the local gym.

gym rat!toji who knew how things are in the beginning of the year, so the first week he arrives one hour earlier than usual to avoid all the lazy fucks that won’t last two months.

of course he makes a few mental bets on the ones that would quit and how long it would take, you included.

it’s easy to spot the “i don’t want lift weights cause i don’t want look jacked” type of girl.

at the breaks between one set and the other he looked around, not surprised to see you slowing down the treadmill after running not even two whole minutes.

sometimes he caught you staring at him through the mirror, not an uncommon occurrence amonst the women there, though you surprised him one day by tapping his shoulder after he finishing his weighted squats.

“can you… give me a few tips?” he looked so intimidated, from up close his shoulders looked like a wall, he stared at you from above, dark green eyes seemed to be heavily judging you, “never mind this was a bad idea, sorry” you turned around, grabbing you bottle and running off the gym.

by the time you managed to gather the courage to show your face back there two whole weeks had passed.

“consistency is the key you know” you were distracted looking down your phone while slowly walking the treadmill when the handsome man appeared beside you, the sudden presence destabilized you.

before you could become the viral video of the week when inevitably a gym employee decides to post the security footage of your ass rolling off the active treadmill, toji wrapped one big arm around your waist and pulled you to the stable floor.

“you caught me off guard the other day” he said completely unfazed by saving you from a life of embarrassment, “then you disappeared.”

“yeah i didn’t know if i wanted to come back anyways, i haven’t see any results so far” you pulled the hem of your shirt down.

toji snorted, “‘course you ain’t seeing results, sweetheart, you don’t lift.”

“well, it’s hard…” toji rolled his eyes, there was always an excuse.

though he also did a new year’s resolution of being more patient, for his kids primarily but teaching a cute thing like you could be a good exercise too.

soon enough, toji was correcting your form, texting you asking why you haven’t showed up to the gym and ringing your bell incessantly when you complained about muscle pain and said you wouldn't go that day.

“it’ll feel better once you start to move” he explained, resting on your door frame when you opened the door on your pajamas.

“let me alone, just today” you whined.

“you asked for my help now go put on something without cartoons on it” he waited for you to turn around and slapped your butt. it had been only one week he was coaching you but there was already a weird intimacy due to the fact he was pretty much always looking at your body and touching you.

to correct your form. obviously.

"what do i have to do today, coach fushiguro?" you asked from your bedroom through an ajar door which allowed toji to get a peek at your pink underwear and cute ass.

"cardio, bicycle first. get some blood flowing on those sore muscles" he tilted his head and raised his eyebrows watching you bend over to grab a biker shorts at the lowest drawer then holding back a laughter at the grunt of pain coming from you.

"once it gets better i can teach you other types of cardio" he walked around your kitchen examining your cabinets and stuff you kept in your fridge. needless to say it was all junk.

"can't wait" you replied sarcastically, failing to understand the meaning.

it took a few more days till you got used to toji's training, then he decided to focus on your upper body.

"such a simple movement, how do you manage to get that wrong?" he raised from the bench he was sitting behind you watching your form through the mirror. you almost dropped the weights at your feet when he came close. it was almost scary how much bigger than you he was especially seeing it throght the mirror. his right hand wrapped around yours on the dumbell and his bicep touched your arm as he pushed your arm closer to your body, "tuck your elbows in, straight your back" his free hand pushed your shoulders till they were touching his chest.

how come he smelled so good, so... musky and...

"are you even making any force?" he lowered his head, his reflection looking annoyed. so you decided to ignore the sudden heat between your thighs and flex your arm the way he taught you.

and just like he promised, when you were consistent enough and handling a good 5 minute run he decided to show you a more pleasing cardio.

"toji please~" you whined, thighs burning from riding him, you were using his rock hard abdomen as a support, but still.

"one more minute, come on" he looked at the watch on his wrist and slapped your ass, "haven't i prep-ed you good enough?" his thumb rubbed your bottom lip then pushed in meeting your tongue, where you tasted yourself in his digits one hour after he ringed your bell and said he was going to reward your good discipline, but he had to strech you first.

"good girl" you felt his abdomn flex when he raised from his laying position on your bed, "now leave it to daddy" he pecked your lips and quickly changed positions, putting a pillow under your ass and rolling his neck to start his cardio of the day.

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.